So About Modern Europe

The West – Europe and the USA – has kind of had its way with the world for a few centuries. Why else does everyone speak English, listen to hip-hop, and want to buy Mercedes? Starting with the Enlightenment, Europeans developed big ideas that have increased opportunities for people around the world and raised standards of living. But those same ideas have also produced wars, genocide, colonialism, and the potential for global environmental disaster. This book describes the origins and legacy of this mixed bag of ideas which includes everything from democracy and feminism to those old foes, communism and capitalism. After all, it's a bag which still shapes how most people on the planet look at things today. In a natural, funny and engaging style, So, About Modern Europe... expertly guides readers through the good, the bad and the indifferent of modern European history, convincingly arguing the need to 'tip the cap' to the Enlightenment and its influence along the way.

Excerpt from A History of Modern Europe The text which follows differs from the many interesting and valuable school histories which have preceded it in laying greater emphasis upon the Contemporary Period. This change of values reflects, I think, the tendency of American schools of history, and these in turn are responding to the growing world-interests of the American people. An expansion of the Nineteenth Century implies a corresponding contraction in the earlier centuries, the period of historical instruction remaining constant. It is a pity, when the history of Europe is everywhere so attractive; but it is inevitable. Our forefathers were content with classical, and often with mythical personages; we have been made to comprehend our Luther and Loyola, our Mirabeau and Napoleon; and our children will have to make more room for their Cavour, their Bismarck, and their Gladstone. It is a choice of benefits, and there are many substantial reasons why, in the building up of a system of popular education, the present should not be sacrificed to the past. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from A Political and Social History of Modern Europe, Vol. 1 This book represents an attempt on the part of the author to satisfy a very real need of a textbook which will reach far enough back to afford secure foundations for a college course in modern European history. The book is a long one, and purposely so. Not only does it undertake to deal with a period at once the most complicated and the most inherently interesting of any in the whole recorded history of mankind, but it aims to impart sufficiently detailed information about the various topics discussed to make the college student feel that he is advanced a grade beyond the student in secondary school. There is too often a tendency to underestimate the intellectual capabilities of the collegian and to feed him so simple and scanty a mental pabulum that he becomes as a child and thinks as a child. Of course the author appreciates the fact that most college instructors of history piece out the elementary textbooks by means of assignments of collateral reading in large standard treatises. All too frequently, however, such assignments, excellent in themselves, leave woeful gaps which a slender elementary manual is inadequate to fill. And the student becomes too painfully aware, for his own educational good, of a chasmal separation between his textbook and his collateral reading. The present manual is designed to supply a narrative of such proportions that the need of additional reading will be somewhat lessened, and at the same time it is provided with critical bibliographies and so arranged as to enable the judicious instructor more easily to make substitutions here and there from other works or to pass over this or that section entirely. Perhaps these considerations will commend to others the judgment of the author in writing a long book. Nowadays prefaces to textbooks of modern history almost invariably proclaim their writers' intention to stress recent happenings or at least those events of the past which have had a direct bearing upon the present. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Fifty years after the beginning of the debate about the "general crisis of the seventeenth century," and thirty years after theodore K. Rabb's reformulation of it as the "European struggle for stability." this volume returns to the fundamental questions raised by the long-running discussion: What continent-wide patterns of change can be discerned in European history across the centuries from the Renaissance to the French Revolution? What were the causes of the revolts that rocked so many countries between 1640 and 1660? Did fundamental changes occur in the relationship between politics and religion? Politics and military technology? Politics and the structures of intellectual authority?

Excerpt from A History of Modern Europe The text which follows differs from the many inter esting and valuable school histories which have preceded it in laying greater emphasis upon the Contemporary Period. This change of values reflects, I think, the ten deney of American schools of history, and these in turn are responding to the growing world-interests of the American people. An expansion of the Nineteenth Cen tury implies a corresponding contraction in the earlier centuries, the period of historical instruction remaining constant. It is a pity, when the history of Europe is everywhere so attractive; but it is inevitable. Our fore fathers were content with classical, and often with myth ical personages we have been made to comprehend our Luther and Loyola, our Mirabeau and Napoleon; and. Our children will have to make more room for their Ca vour, their Bismarck, and their Gladstone. It is a choice of benefits, and there are many substantial reasons why, in the building up of a system of popular education, the present should not be sacrificed to the past. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Highlighting the most important events, ideas, and individuals that shaped modern Europe, A Concise History of Modern Europe provides a readable, succinct history of the continent from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution to the present day. Avoiding a detailed, lengthy chronology, the book focuses on key events and ideas to explore the causes and consequences of revolutions—be they political, economic, or scientific; the origins and development of human rights and democracy; and issues of European identity. Any reader needing a broad overview of the sweep of European history since 1789 will find this book, published in a first edition under the title Revolutionary Europe, an engaging and cohesive narrative.

Thoroughly updated best-selling textbook with new learning features. This acclaimed textbook has unmatched breadth of coverage and a global perspective.